Free The Box: Uncanny Stories by Richard Matheson Page A

slow and heavy. Putting down his cup of untouched coffee, Gheria stood and moved to where Vares sat slumped in his chair. He pressed back an eyelid, looked down briefly at the sightless pupil, then withdrew his hand. The drug was quick, he thought. And most effective. Vares would be insensible for more than time enough.
    Moving to the closet, Gheria drew down his bag and carried it to the bed. He tore Alexis’s nightdress from her upper body and, within seconds, had drawn another syringe full of her blood; this would be the last withdrawal, fortunately. Staunching the wound, he took the syringe to Vares and emptied it into the young man’s mouth, smearing it across his lips and teeth.
    That done, he strode to the door and unlocked it. Returning to Vares, he raised and carried him into the hall. Karel would not awaken; a small amount ofopiate in his food had seen to that. Gheria labored down the steps beneath the weight of Vares’ body. In the darkest corner of the cellar, a wooden casket waited for the younger man. There he would lie until the following morning when the distraught Dr. Petre Gheria would, with sudden inspiration, order Karel to search the attic and cellar on the remote, nay fantastic possibility that—
    Ten minutes later, Gheria was back in the bedroom checking Alexis’s pulse beat. It was active enough; she would survive. The pain and torturing horror she had undergone would be punishment enough for her. As for Vares—
    Dr. Gheria smiled in pleasure for the first time since Alexis and he had returned from Cluj at the end of the summer. Dear spirits in heaven, would it not be sheer enchantment to watch old Karel drive a stake through Michael Vares’ damned cuckolding heart!

Pattern for
Survival
     
     
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
And they stood beneath the crystal towers, beneath the polished heights which, like scintillant mirrors, caught rosy sunset on their faces until their city was one vivid, coruscated blush
.
    Ras slipped an arm about the waist of his beloved
.
    “
Happy?” he inquired, in a tender voice
.
    “
Oh, yes,” she breathed. “Here in our beautiful city where there is peace and happiness for all, how could I be anything but happy?
”
    Sunset cast its roseate benediction upon their soft embrace
.
     
    THE END
     
    The clatter ceased. His hands curled in like blossoms and his eyes fell shut. The prose was wine. It trickled on the taste buds of his mind, adizzying potion. I’ve done it again, he recognized, by George in heaven, I’ve done it again.
    Satisfaction towed him out to sea. He went down for the third time beneath its happy drag. Surfacing then, reborn, he estimated wordage, addressed envelope, slid in manuscript, weighed total, affixed stamps and sealed. Another brief submergence in the waters of delight, then up withal and to the mailbox.
    It was almost twelve as Richard Allen Shaggley hobbled down the quiet street in his shabby overcoat. He had to hurry or he’d miss the pickup and he mustn’t do that.
Ras and the City of Crystal
was too superlative to wait another day. He wanted it to reach the editor immediately. It was a certain sale.
    Circuiting the giant, pipe-strewn hole (When, in the name of heaven would they finish repairing that blasted sewer?), he limped on hurriedly, envelope clutched in rigid fingers, heart a turmoil of vibration.
    Noon. He reached the mailbox and cast about anxious glances for the postman. No sign of him. A sigh of pleasure and relief escaped his chapped lips. Face aglow, Richard Allen Shaggley listened to the envelope thump gently on the bottom of the mailbox.
    The happy author shuffled off, coughing.
     
    A l’s legs were bothering him again. He shambled up the quiet street, teeth gritted slightly, leather sackpulling down his weary shoulder. Getting old, he thought, haven’t got the drive any more. Rheumatism in the legs. Bad; makes it hard to do the route.
    At twelve-fifteen, he reached the dark green mailbox and drew the keys